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Are cleaning products tested on animals?

Concern for animal welfare is an important issue, and many people ask: are cleaning products tested on animals? The simple answer is no. Our members haven’t been testing the cleaning products they offer you on animals for more than 20 years.

We are completely committed to providing you with safe products and in the past that sometimes required animal testing. But our members have invested millions to help do the research to develop other ways of testing to provide that safety assurance.

So, contrary to what you might think when you see some cleaning products being promoted as “not tested on animals”, that’s true of all the products you buy from our members too.

EU controls on animal testing

EU law governing the safety of ingredients used in products requires comprehensive test data relating to human and environmental safety to be submitted for each ingredient. If there is no other way of filling a gap in that data, the ingredient manufacturers who supply the industry may be legally obliged to do an animal test.

Our members have worked hard to ensure existing test data is used to the fullest extent and across as wide a range of ingredients as possible. As a result, data gaps where the law might require animal testing are rare and even for our suppliers an animal test is always a last resort.